Scenes From An Italian Restaurant
by Eleantris
Summary: A story told in four parts. A year is all it takes for Gene and Alex to come together.
1. Summer

_A bottle of white, a bottle of red,_

_Perhaps a bottle of rosé instead._

_We'll get a table near the street_

_In our old familiar place,_

_You and I - face to face._

* * *

The evening sunshine is a welcome relief on Alex's face as she takes a seat, propping her elbow on the table and resting her chin in her hand for a moment. It threads in her hair and caresses her skin, lifting the tired lines from around her eyes. It's been a long day and a hard case, but when Alex looks down the street at the sun on the trees and a group of children, safe and happy, playing football on the corner, she smiles. Perhaps the world can be beautiful as well as dark, and perhaps even on those days where everything seems most hopeless, there is still a possibility for hope.

The warm summer they're having has induced Luigi to placing some tables and chairs outside on the pavement, and there are even hanging baskets overflowing with flowers now, dangling a little precariously from the red canopy. Alex has grown used to hearing Luigi's wife whistling and humming to herself each morning as she waters them in her dressing gown, more often than not with a daughter or son in tow, attached to her hip or following at her ankles. Gene sinks into the seat opposite her with a heavy sigh.

"Mind if I join you out 'ere, Bols?"

The smile is still touching her lips as she refocuses her gaze on him. "Of course not."

The rest of the team has headed inside, Ray declaring that sitting outside only means being further away from the bar, and what's the point in that? Alex smiles again. Some people never change. She looks across at Gene again though. But then, some people do. For a few moments there is nothing but a compassionate silence between them because in those moments, they both know that they need to catch their breath.

After a while, Gene speaks, his face grave. "It's a twisted world, Bolly."

She makes a small humming noise that could be either agreement or disagreement. He isn't sure. "Perhaps," she says, lifting her chin from her hand. "Or perhaps it's just got twisted people in it."

He looks down, shaking his head, but she knows it isn't directed at her – he's shaking his head at the twisted world and the twisted people in it, at the cruelty of mankind and the injustice they battle with day after day. Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose. Today they won, but it doesn't feel much like a victory.

"I can deal with the brutality, Bolly. I can deal with the violence and the scum of this city and the rapes and the armed robberies and the drugs and the murders. But when there are kids involved…" He shakes his head again, lips twisting in defeat as his gaze comes up to meet hers. "It makes me sick."

Alex looks at him – really looks at him – and realises, as if for the first time, how tired he looks. He looks weary of the world, weary of the darkness and the filth he has to sort through every day, and more than that, he looks defeated. This case hit them all hard – how could it not? – but she never could have imagined it would affect her DCI like this.

She sighs softly. "Gene… We did all we could, we got him." Hesitantly, she reaches for his hand, her fingers hovering in the air for a moment before settling over his. He looks down at their hands and to her surprise doesn't move his away. "We were able to give Grace White the closure and justice she deserved, Gene. That's something."

"Doesn't change what happened though, does it? At the end of the day, she's still never going t' tuck her little boy into bed again, or read 'im a bedtime story or tell 'im off for not eating his greens." He looks up at her with hard eyes, a wall of saltwater ice in front of steely blue.

"She's still going to have t' live with the image of her son, pale and lifeless, for the rest of 'er life. How is that justice, Bolly? How is that closure? Graham Hadley should be butchered into bits, not thrown into a cell to enjoy the rest of 'is life with three square meals a day and trips outside for good behaviour." He spits these last words out, swallowing hard as though ingesting something revolting.

Alex drops her head, swallowing too as she blinks back tears. She lets out a heavy breath, thinking of Molly, and squeezes Gene's hand, looking to receive comfort as much as give it. "I know," she whispers. "I know."

They fall into companionable silence again, Alex's hand still covering Gene's on the table until Luigi appears five minutes later. Gene pulls his hand back as if burned, and she tries not to feel offended. Luigi's face is grave as he approaches with a menu in his hand, so Alex gathers that the rest of the team must have filled him in, or else he has deduced the general details from their sombre mood.

"Signor Hunt, Signora Drake, what will it be to drink?"

Inhaling deeply as though trying to lift some kind of heavy weight from his chest, Gene flicks his eyes toward Alex. "Bols, red or white?"

"Um…" A small smile makes an attempt on the corners of her lips as she looks up at Luigi. "Have you got any more of that lovely rosé that was on the specials board last week?"

"Yes, yes, of course, Signora Drake! A bottle or a glass?"

She waits for the rebuke from Gene – he's not going to sit here drinking pink wine like a poofter so she best just get herself a glass – but he surprises her again.

Before Alex can reply, Gene says, "A bottle, Luigi, an' be quick about it. The lady gets soppy if she hasn't had a drink before nine. She's already had a go at holding my 'and tonight."

That earns him a laugh, and just like that, the heavy feeling in Alex's chest that she suspects is in Gene's too begins to lighten just a little. She smiles a little easier, and if she isn't mistaken, the hint of a familiar smirk is just threatening at the corners of Gene's lips.

"Right away then, Signor," Luigi says, laughing also. "I have the food menu too." He puts it down on the table with a meaningful look and tells them, "You need to eat. You detectives, you drink, but you do not eat! Food is good for the soul, for the health. You'll feel better."

Alex smiles gratefully. "Thank you, Luigi."

The little Italian man gets the hint and shuffles away before Gene can mutter anything about being bossed around by restaurant owners who are just trying to rack more money up on his tab.

* * *

They order pizza and a pasta dish to share and Alex watches Gene drink the rosé without so much as a grumbled word.

"Well, who would have thought it?"

He glances up at her from his pasta. "Who'd have thought what, Bolly?"

She nods toward his near-empty glass with a teasing smile. "The Gene Genie is partial to a glass of rosé now and again. This is a revelation. I'll be sure to bear it in mind."

He jabs his fork towards her now. "Don't you dare, Bols. Only let you order it t' save a fuss."

Alex nonchalantly steals a forkful of pasta, delicately popping it into her mouth and chewing before saying with a shrug, "Of course."

Gene glares at her. "Bolly."

She only laughs, helping herself to another slice of pizza before topping up both their glasses. Her gaze softens then and she smiles at him. "Either way, I appreciate the gesture, Gene. It was very gentlemanly of you."

"Cheeky mare."

"Tosser."

He grins at her and she grins back and as the sun dips down behind the nearby rooftops, casting a fiery glow onto the brickwork of Luigi's and leaving dusk to descend on Fenchurch, Alex feels distinctly again that even the darkest days can give way to the happiest evenings.

* * *

"You know, yer an alright copper, Bolly. For a bird, I mean," Gene says out of the blue a while later as they're waiting for a portion of Luigi's finest tiramisu to arrive.

She looks up at him, surprise settling pleasantly onto her face before she narrows her eyes slightly. "Is that supposed to be a compliment, Mr Hunt?"

Leaning back in his chair, nourished now with good food and half a bottle of wine and feeling perfectly at ease, Gene smirks and places his empty wine glass back down on the table. "Yes, DI Drake, I do believe it was."

She could call him a misogynistic bastard, or give him the lecture on how women are no less qualified than men to be detectives, but she saves it. He's heard it all, and she knows he doesn't mean it. She knows that now – who he is, or who he _really_ is. He might never say it, but she knows he respects her. But still, to hear him kind of say it, in the best and only way he really can say it, touches her and brings a small smile to her face.

"Then thank you, Gene," she says softly, watching the pale pink swish in the bottom of her glass as she swills it about the bottom before downing it. She looks at him over the rim, the globed glass distorting her smile into a smirk. "You're not so bad yourself, it turns out."

He raises his eyebrows. "Not so bad, eh? Well that is praise indeed."

Alex bites her lip to contain her smile and she's about to say something more when Luigi appears, tiramisu and a second bottle of wine in his hands. He places both down on the table and gives each of them a spoon with two pointed looks and a quirked eyebrow.

"Your dessert, Signor Hunt, Signora Drake. Enjoy." He produces a lighter and lights the tea-light candle between them before pocketing it again with a flourish.

Gene huffs out a "Cheers," whilst Alex thanks him with a warm smile, and he is practically beaming as he scuttles back inside.

Sitting back upright in his chair again, Gene picks up his spoon and smirks, raising his eyebrows at Alex. "Well look at this, Bols, me and you and a candlelit dinner."

He's teasing, she knows, but there is something underneath his voice, an undercurrent that shows in his eyes too, that implies something more. She can't help the warmth that suffuses her smile. "Stop the presses," she remarks in as dry a voice as she can manage when he's looking at her like that, watching as she sinks her spoon into the tiramisu and lifts it to her lips.

The tiramisu is so good that she closes her eyes. Gene swallows hard as he watches the spoon disappear into her mouth, watches the tip of her tongue poke out to catch every last speck of cream and the blissful smile on her face as she opens her eyes.

She catches him staring. "What?"

Gene starts, shaking his head and scooping up his own spoonful of dessert. But she doesn't seem affronted or embarrassed, remarkably, so he just laughs, shakes his head again and says, "Nothing. Nothing, Bolly."

He won't tell her that it is everything – _means_ everything, to be sitting here alone with her, sharing a dessert on a summer's evening outside Luigi's. Not all of his dreams concerning his DI involve him in few clothes and she in even fewer. Sometimes, they just involve this – enjoying each other's company, her laugh when he tells a joke, the sunlight in her hair.

* * *

They take their time over dessert, talking for hours – well past closing time – about somethings and nothings, some important, some not so important. Above them the sky fades to an indigo blue, twilight dampening the air slowly so that they hardly notice the gradual approach of night until the first stars appear. Gene watches the way the shadows dawn on Alex's face, darkening her lips and her eyes and he watches the candlelight flicker against her jaw and in her smile. He wants to say it, let the words slip from his tongue – does she know how beautiful she is? – but there are too many blurry lines still, too many barriers that can't be crossed and walls too high to climb. So he stays silent and listens to her talk, savouring each vowel that escapes her lips and every consonant that slides from her tongue.

Luigi appears again after the tiramisu is long gone, looking a little tired yet happy to be so. "Signor Hunt, Signora Drake, I lock up now if that is okay. Unless you are wanting any coffees?"

"No, thank you, Luigi. We've kept you up long enough. We'll just come in to pay the bill." Alex smiles and places a hand on the Italian man's arm as she stands. "The tiramisu was heavenly as always."

"Ah, actually, Luigi, forget the bill. Just stick it all on my tab." Gene's eyes dart hesitantly to Alex but she nods, letting him just this once.

"As you wish, Signor." Luigi beams at them and has the daring to raise a suggestive eyebrow upwards as he bids them goodnight.

"Do you…uh… Would you like me t' walk you up, Lady Bols?" Gene asks once they're alone and again Alex can hear the undercurrent of something stronger in his voice again, something at once forceful and gentle that suggests this was no ordinary after-work dinner.

Drawing her jacket closer around her as the evening chill begins to make itself known, Alex nods and smiles. "Why not?"

* * *

They climb the stairs to her flat in silence, the air between them heavy with unsaid words and unspoken thoughts. There is a warm contentment settled at the base of Alex's spine and the smile lingers on her lips as they near her door. But when she turns to Gene he looks distant, hesitant – almost scared and in that moment, she feels something shift between them. She feels something deepen and fortify itself in the heart of her chest, feels a surge of affection and admiration for this man who hides himself so well and who she wishes wouldn't hide himself from her.

"So…err… I was wondering…" Gene's hand creeps up to the back of his neck where his fingertips rub absentmindedly. He seems to struggle to decide which leg to put his weight on. "I was thinking, Bols, if you want… If you don't want then forget it, but ah… Maybe we could do this again one night? Properly, I mean. Perhaps next Saturday, if yer not busy."

The smile blooms across Alex's face and Gene instantly relaxes, his hand dropping back down by his side. "I'd love to, Gene."

"Good. Great. Well then, I'll just… I'll see you tomorrow, Bolly."

Fighting the urge to laugh at this stubborn, incorrigible, incredible man who can brave the worst of London's scum but can't ask her out on a date coherently, Alex nods and takes her key from her pocket. She is about to wish him goodnight when he pauses, turning back to face her fully.

"Oh, and Bols?"

"Yes?"

He is looking her straight in the eye now, his gaze only wavering slightly as he seems, for a moment, to be torn. Then he says, in a tone more grateful and gentle than she has ever thought him capable of: "I meant what I said downstairs. Yer a brilliant copper. Today was… Today was one of the hardest cases we've ever worked and you… Well you were the one that kept the team together when I couldn't, so… Thank you, Bols."

For a moment, Alex can only stand staring at him in stunned silence before a smile spreads across her lips again, lighting her eyes with an affection and warmth that stuns Gene in return. "I'm alright. For a bird," she says, laughter in her voice.

Gene nods, smirking. "For a bird."

But their gazes are connected and tell a different story, and the words they are exchanging silently are so much more sincere. Beneath the jokes and their camaraderie, he is saying, _thank you for being there when I needed you_, and she is telling him, _anytime_.

She moves forward, closing the space between them as she presses her lips to his cheek, inhaling the familiar scent of him that she long ago ceased trying to put her finger on. "Goodnight, Gene."

His hand rests gently at her waist for just a brief moment as the smell of her – fresh summer air, coffee liqueur and pink wine – steals inside of him. He'll never get her out.

"Night, Alex."

* * *

_**Well… hello again, dear readers. Long time, no see. I think this little story is going to be in four parts, one for each season. This first part is set mid-series two, for reasons that will hopefully become apparent towards the end of the next chapter/the beginning of the third. I hope you enjoyed this anyway, and I'd love to know what you think so far! Thank you very much for reading.**_

_**Eleantris :)**_

_**Disclaimer – Ashes to Ashes does not belong to me, and neither do the lyrics to Billy Joel's 'Scenes From An Italian Restaurant'.**_


	2. Autumn

_A bottle of red, a bottle of white,_

_It all depends upon your appetite._

_I'll meet you any time you want_

_In our Italian Restaurant._

* * *

Between dealing with the burglary at the Drakes, George Staines, Colin Mitchell's murder and Trevor Riley, Gene and Alex lose track of the days and they miss 'next Saturday' by a few weeks. It is September before Luigi looks up to find them sat once again at their table, nestled in the corner of the restaurant, away from prying eyes. He smiles as he watches them, experienced eyes noticing, catching everything.

He's wearing a new suit, trying to pass it off as just another work one – but it's too nice, too well-fitted to be wasted on hauling around the worst Fenchurch's criminal underground has to offer. He's run a comb through his hair, and scrubbed the dirt from his boots, Luigi suspects. Sure enough, the trademark crocodile skin is cleaner than he's ever seen it.

She's wearing a new lipstick – new perfume too, no doubt – and Luigi doesn't miss the extra care she has taken with her hair this evening and the way her jewellery complements the molten amber of her eyes, so that she is almost glowing in the warm candlelight as she smiles at something Gene has said, gaze dropping down to the table like she's hiding a secret.

Outside, summer is on its deathbed, slipping into a deep slumber as the nights grow darker, colder, and the leaves begin to burn. But inside Luigi's the light is soft and warm and looking at her, Gene can't help but think that Alex suits this place, suits the sultry red tones of the décor, the dark stained wood of the tables and the smoke and whisky atmosphere. She looks so at home, for someone who claims not to have one.

Luigi comes over with their drinks, places the bottle of red on the table and hands them menus. Once he's gone, Gene clears his throat, hesitant. Alex looks up from perusing the new specials.

"Sorry it's only Luigi's, Bolly – was going t' take you somewhere nice, special, y'know, but haven't 'ad time to find anything."

Beneath the table, he shifts his feet, and in front of him, he isn't sure quite how to put his hands. She deserves better than a last minute meal at their usual after-work drinking place – deserves better than him, probably. He hates how she makes him second guess himself; he isn't used to feeling as though he has to _try_ to impress. Yet he loves that she makes him second guess himself, loves that around her, he doesn't have to retain the hard shell and the armour that has been growing heavier and heavier of late.

But Alex only smiles at him, shaking her head. She puts down her menu and Gene catches the stubborn burn of something sincere and almost serious in her eyes.

"Gene, you don't have to apologise. This _is_ special. It's nice, and the rest of the team are out. Stop worrying."

Over the past few weeks, something has shifted between them, like strings being pulled tighter or shades being lifted. She is learning him anew, tracing her fingertips over the scars in his soul – his hopes, his fragilities, the secrets that keep him awake at night. And this new discovery – that sometimes, Gene Hunt is insecure – is her favourite. It reminds her that he is human – oh so human, and oh so real – and reassures her that no matter the improbabilities, he is no figment of her imagination.

He shrugs in reply, flipping his own menu open. "Just wanted t' give you a change of scenery, Bolly – make a proper night of it."

Smiling and shaking her head, Alex sighs. "You don't get it, do you? Listen to me." He looks up at her – drinks in the movements of her gaze as she looks around the restaurant.

"This place is special to me – to us. Yes it's where we always come but that's why I love it. We have memories here, Gene, and more than anywhere else in this world, this restaurant feels like home. So if you wanted to take me somewhere special, somewhere important, then you have." She smiles at him and the smile cracks into a faint laugh. "Besides, nobody makes a steak and chips pizza as good as Luigi's."

Laughing too, but inwardly stilling as her words suffuse into his blood and make him feel all kinds of things he is scared to feel, Gene flips a page of his menu over and reaches for his glass. "If you say so."

"I do say so."

He flicks his gaze up to hers. "Yer a soppy mare, Bolly, you know that?"

She laughs. "Yes."

He clears his throat. "Good, now that part's over, would you care t' tell me what the bloody hell bresaola is because it sounds like the name of an upmarket Italian prozzie to me."

* * *

Neither of them knows what this is. Perhaps it is nothing and perhaps it is many things. Maybe even everything. Alex feels like it is a date and a dinner between close friends and a beginning and an ending and an impasse and an implosion all at once. By the time dessert arrives – tiramisu again – she has stopped searching for a label.

"What are you thinking about, Bols?"

She is lost in her own mind, spoon sinking absently into the tiramisu before she startles, gaze jumping up to meet his. "Hm?"

He nods at her and picks up his own spoon as the déjà vu gently probes at the top of his spine. "You've got yer thinking face on."

"Oh." She smiles. "I was just thinking how lovely this is, and…" Laughing, her bright eyes meet his and she shakes her head. "You're going to call me a soppy mare again, aren't you? Well I don't care." She lifts her spoon to her lips with a smile. "I'm really enjoying tonight, Gene."

Gene raises a suggestive eyebrow as she slips the tiramisu into her mouth, lips sliding over the spoon slowly and tongue searching out every last drop as she holds his gaze captive, just the threat of a smirk in her expression. He's glad she likes Luigi's tiramisu so much, because this is a sight he could see over and over and not get bored of seeing it.

"It…uh…it certainly looks like it, Bolly."

Her eyes are bright and sultry at the same time, laughing at him. He wants her – wants the way she moves her hands when she talks about something she loves, wants the way she slips her ankle beside his beneath the table, wants the way she smiles at him as he talks, not with her mouth but with her eyes, and he wants the way she watches his lips when she thinks he isn't looking, the way her voice sounds like polished glass and white wine in his head and the way she is smiling at him now, openly, because she _knows_.

* * *

He walks her up to her door again, watching the way her hips move beneath the deep blue skirt of her dress as she feels the weight of his eyes on her, sending slivers of fire down her spine in the silence.

She turns to him as they reach her flat door. "Do you…um… Do you want to come in for a coffee, or… I think I've got some single malt in the cupboard?"

His hands are in his pockets, shoulders slightly raised and customary pout resting on his lips. "Well, now there's an offer I can't refuse."

She smiles, pleased, and lets them both in, her heels clicking on the laminate floor as she heads into the kitchen. She returns a moment later with two tumblers of whisky, the deep amber at the bottom of the glass the same colour as her eyes. Gene takes it from her with an almost gruff "Cheers, Bols", his long fingers brushing hers before they both sink down onto the sofa.

Alex slips off her heels, bringing her legs up to tuck beneath her as she sits leaning back against the arm of the sofa, facing Gene. For a few moments they drink in silence, words dangling in the air, just waiting to be caught.

She watches his profile in the half light, tracing her gaze slowly over the contours the shadows create on his face – the strong line of his nose, the rugged skin and his eyes, fierce and swirling as ever.

"I've got a VHS of High Noon kicking about here somewhere," she says after a while, voice quiet but expectant.

She leans forward to place her drink on the coffee table, searching beneath it for the tape before he has chance to reply. It isn't there. She frowns, getting up to cross the room to the bookcase. Her eyes are searching the shelves and she opens her mouth to speak again when she hears him say her name behind her - quietly, softly, like a prayer.

"Alex."

She turns, but her reply dies on her lips. He is standing just a few inches away, and the storm in his eyes has stilled. She feels his hand settle gently on her hip, his touch so light it is barely there. When he speaks again, his voice is a low murmur that causes her very spine to shiver.

"Forget the bleedin' VHS."

And then he is kissing her, his lips meeting hers with decision, at once gentle and forceful, guiding and following. She kisses him back.

He tastes of coffee and whisky, the ghosts of cigarette smoke and safety, and his fingertips are warm as they caress the back of her neck, slipping beneath the curls of her hair. He kisses her the way he would taste a fine wine – slowly, hesitantly, but then fully, wholly and completely. She is exquisite, in every way. He is drunk on the taste of her, on the feel of her warm skin beneath his hands and on the way her body aligns with his, consuming distance.

There is stardust behind Alex's closed eyelids and fire between their tongues. Her breath catches as she feels her back collide with the bookcase and her teeth toy for just a split second with his lower lip, her tongue smoothing the damage she has left behind. Her head is tilted backwards now, his nose sliding the length of hers as he savours her.

"…Gene…?"

She breathes his name against his skin, butterfly lashes closing as he kisses her again.

"Mm?"

Placing one hand on his chest, she opens her eyes and smiles up at him. The lamplight softens her eyes. "Do you want to, um…?" She inclines her head towards the bedroom and by their sides, her hand reaches for his.

Entangling his fingers with hers, Gene nods and allows her to lead them from the living room, whisky tumblers sitting abandoned on the coffee table. A red rose lies on the windowsill, unseen.

* * *

_**I felt incredibly rusty writing those last few scenes, but I hope that didn't come across too strong. Thank you so much for reading, and please do drop me a line or two letting me know your thoughts. The next chapter should be up soon. **_

_**Eleantris :)**_

_**~ the usual disclaimers apply.**_


	3. Winter

_Oh we lost touch long ago_

_You lost weight - I did not know_

_You could ever look so nice after so much time_

* * *

Little more than a week later, a gunshot shatters the illusion that things between them could ever be simple. Gene watches a silent, far-flung dream seep away between the cracks in the pavement with her blood and there are tears gathering in her eyes that look like the stars they forgot to wish upon. Her blood is as red as the roses that have been haunting her, his bullet as cold as the woman it was intended for. The last thing she sees are his eyes and the smoke of his gun as the wind snatches it away.

* * *

They return to each other months later, when autumn has withered into winter and there is ice in the air, on the ground and in their veins. It pumps cold blood to hearts that have fallen out of rhythm with each other, to lips that have grown cold with distance and the damage a bullet can do. He touches her wound and says sorry, but he knows it will never be enough. Not this time.

The atmosphere in Luigi's that night is cold. Perhaps it is the presence of Jim Keats causing such gloom to pervade the usual warmth of the restaurant, or perhaps it is the myriad of unspoken words and unexplained glances and untimed heartbeats between Gene and Alex that is setting everybody so sharply on edge. They are back to walking a thin line, and both are afraid of which way the knife may fall.

Gene feels it in his chest, in his gut – things have changed. How could they not? She drinks her wine in silence now, drowning her gaze in the red embers of her glass as he struggles to remember how he used to make her smile. She feels far away from him, though she is sitting where she has always sat – across from him, level with him, his equal. He wants to touch her, reassure himself that she is there, but he fears her inevitable recoil, her gasp, the icy sheen of her skin. How could she greet him warmly, after what he has done?

She lost weight in hospital and a little of her spirit as well – he can see the loss of it in her eyes, in the pale hollow beneath them and in the way her smile doesn't blush her cheeks the way it used to. Her clothes hang off her frame and he is reminded of the delicate skeleton that she hides away beneath the bravado, the headstrong stubbornness and skinny jeans. Her bones break just like everybody else's. Her heart, too. He fears that she – _they_ – are broken, but -

She is still so beautiful.

* * *

Hours later and they are still trapped by silence. Keats is long gone and yet Gene and Alex remain at their usual table, saying nothing and everything at the same time. The team are making small talk around them, but Alex can only give small answers of agreement here and there, her eyes always watching Gene. She glances at him in the spaces between every heartbeat.

There is something broken and defeated about him that saddens Alex to her core. She wants to reach inside of him and find all his shattered pieces, form them into their rightful constellations with her fingertips and sew him back together. She wants to close her eyes once more against his neck and whisper his name over and over again until he believes in her forgiveness, until his guilt becomes nothing more than a whisper on the wind of the night, whipped far away as they sink back into a dream they once wished for together.

But he won't meet her gaze or reach out for her and she fears that she is nothing but an empty vessel to him now, a tainted shell of a soul he once came halfway to loving – maybe. She feels it – his anger, his rage and his guilt and his torment. It suffuses his shadow and the grim set of his jaw and she senses now that perhaps it is not only the nights that have grown darker and colder in her absence.

Everything is scattered uncertainties, hidden in the stains on Luigi's table tops and the dregs of wine at the bottom of her glass. There are unasked questions in the air and anxieties hiding in empty champagne bottles.

And then – in a moment so fragile, so fleeting that neither dares to blink – they both look up, gazes finding each other in a way their words refuse to. Ray and Shaz are laughing at something idiotic Chris has said, Alex didn't catch it, but her gaze is caught now by the steel and smoke in Gene's eyes, and his by the melancholy amber of hers.

They say nothing but there is something – _something_ – undeniably there. It is like a spark in the darkness, a warm murmur in the silence – a link between them that is humming its way slowly back to life. He swallows, finally blinking, and the corners of her lips afford him just a glimpse of the smile he has missed. They each lower their gaze but feel, somewhere inside, the ice beginning to thaw, now that an understanding has passed between them.

They are still the ones. They still have a connection.

* * *

A few weeks later finds them once more in Alex's flat, sitting in silence again, drinks in hand. It's been a long day – a gruelling case and snide words and even snider looks from Keats – and Alex can still feel the weight of his expectations on her back. But she will not believe in his insinuations, in the way his words twist in his mouth unpleasantly. She trusts Gene. Completely.

And yet still there are unspoken words between them. The ice is thawing, but winter has by no means come to an end. Outside it is raining, the cold drizzle glowing a dead orange in the streetlights and trickling down the window pain, distorting the reflection of both their profiles and their distinct forms on the couch – she with her legs tucked up beneath her, he with his right ankle over his left knee.

Eventually Gene's head turns towards her and Alex tears her gaze away from their reflections in the window to look at him face to face. There are lines about his eyes and a heaviness in his brow that she swears wasn't there before whatever it was they had crumbled to pieces.

"Why did you invite me up here, Alex?"

It is not so much a question as a plea and his tongue seems to slice each word quietly and carefully in two, as though his lips are unsure of whether or not to let them escape.

"I…"

Even now, she falters. The look in her eyes as she meets his gaze again is inexpressibly sad, her lips wet and almost trembling as he watches her, waiting. Her words spill from her mouth, overflowing and somewhere in between her erratic heartbeats, she hope he understands.

"I just want everything back the way it was, Gene… before the bullet, before operation rose, before Keats…before everything. I want you and me and the Quattro and driving too fast and me telling you to slow down while you turn the radio up so you can pretend you haven't heard me. I want the way we used to argue over the most ridiculous things because we didn't know or care that there were more important things, and how no matter what, we always ended up at the same place, in Luigi's, drinking our own words away until Luigi sent us packing."

Her eyes drop down to the depths of her half-empty glass as though the sweet wine there will give her a glimmer of hope. Her next words are her final confession, whispered as though not intended to be heard, but he hears them.

"I miss you. I miss us."

A long, soft sigh issues from Gene's chest and it sounds like absolution. With six whispered words she has acquitted him of his sins, graced him with the forgiveness he didn't know he was seeking. He leans forward, gently takes the glass from between her fingers and places it beside his own on the coffee table. He then raises his arm, the way she remembers him doing all those months (almost two years ago, now) in the vault – another time when vulnerability was raw in her bones, the fragile truth of her mortality staring her down.

She moves to huddle up to his side, feeling very almost like a small child as he wraps his arm around her and just like that, she feels safe again. Her hand rests upon his chest, fingers playing idly with the tie he has loosened from his neck as she closes her eyes and breathes him in, wondering if any physical place can ever embody home for her the way that his scent does.

She feels his lips press almost reverently to her forehead, his warm breath brushing across her brow so that she feels she may never frown again. She understands what this is, this silent exchange, this affectionate caress. His kiss is a promise in the dark of winter and she smiles. The falling rain outside can only tempt the coming of spring.

* * *

_**Thank you as ever for reading, and I'm sorry this chapter took a little longer to get to you. I'm in Cambridge for a summer school this coming Monday to Friday, but hopefully I will be able to get the final part of this story written once I get back. Thanks again, and please drop me a review on your way out! **_

_**Eleantris :) **_

_**~ all usual disclaimers apply**_


	4. Spring

_A bottle of red, a bottle of white,_

_Whatever kind of mood you're in tonight._

_I'll meet you anytime you want_

_In our Italian Restaurant._

* * *

Even draped as she is by the thick wool of her oversized coat, Alex feels cold. There's an ice lump in her throat, both sharp and numb as she struggles to swallow the truth. After everything, after all they have been through, everything they have shared and hidden and confessed and fought for, he is sending her away. None of this – not the team, not this life, not him, not _them_ – was ever meant to be permanent. But oh she wants it to be.

"Please, Gene. Please, you can't send me in there, you- you need me, Gene." She is clutching the lapels of his coat, fingers shaking with her words. There are tears in her eyes and in her pleas and she is well aware that her voice is that of a small child's – small, broken and so terribly scared. She can feel the weight of Keats' scornful gaze, but she doesn't care. He can't understand what this is, what she is clinging to. He will never understand, and she feels sorry for him.

Her gaze hangs onto Gene's the way she is hanging onto his coat, like a child at bedtime. It's dark and it's late but she doesn't want to go. But this – this is worth fighting for. This is about all the tiny broken pieces of her heart and the memory of her daughter and the way he is the only man to ever make her feel alive.

"Please, Gene," she whispers again, imploring his silence. "Don't make me leave."

The tears spill from her eyes now, amber bleeding saltwater diamonds that glisten bronze and silver in the glow of the streetlamps and in the heavenly light of the Railway Arms behind them. Her lip is trembling in a way that makes Gene want to kiss her, but he says nothing, the knowledge of the inevitable clawing his insides. He can feel truth's black fingers scratching through his ribcage, clutching his heart and holding it against his will. Its firm grip cannot be denied.

She falls into him, face buried against his neck as though the familiar cigarette smoke and soap scent of him will dissolve reality. His arms wrap themselves around her, holding her as close as he can bear as he realises no body has ever fit against his so well as hers does. When he does eventually speak, the whisper of his voice is hoarse, regret scraping the gravel of the single syllable he utters.

"Bols."

Taking her gently by the shoulders, he holds her back from him so he can meet her gaze. He tells her that she has to go, that she was never meant to stay here for so long, that he never meant to trap her in his world for all this time – he was not supposed to fall in love with her, he had never intended… The words all blur into a painful tangle of apologies and regrets but in their shared heartbeats between each word, all Alex can hear is the desperate plea in his eyes, the words he will never say, only feel. He is begging her: _please don't leave me here alone in the dark_.

For a few moments they stand in silence, communicating with wordless gazes. His hands hold her shoulders, her own hands slumped uselessly against his chest. The breeze sweeps dust along the pavement; it flits abound their feet and swirls around the corner. Above their heads the stars are playing out their endless tragedy, constellations of hopeless love and mythical destinies embroiling themselves in the velvet sky, paying no heed to the ceaseless beating of the two human hearts below, the agonised contractions of their lungs as they contemplate breathing without the other.

"What's it like?" Alex whispers eventually. "In there, Gene. What's it like?"

Gene's gaze wanders for just a moment and he looks at the Railway Arms the way a banished man looks upon the home from which he is exiled. Inside, he can't help but envy her fate.

"I think, Bols, that it can be anywhere and anything you want it to be." He shrugs and tries to lift the corners of his lips ever so slightly. "It is heaven, Bolly. Yer not being sentenced to Dante's inferno."

She laughs, just a little, if only at the reference to Dante coming from him, this remarkable man with his claims to ignorance of the classical and cultural. She wets her lips. "Anywhere I want it to be?"

He only nods.

A small, tentative smile quivers on her lips. "Even Luigi's?"

His hands move from her shoulders to brush the sides of her jaw, fingertips caressing her temples. As though magnetically, they tilt their foreheads closer, so that they appear for all the world like the silhouettes of two young lovers, whispering sweet nothings to each other in the dead of night. Except these aren't sweet nothings. These are everythings, and they are all Alex is clinging to with broken fingertips and tearstained words.

"Yes, Bols. Even Luigi's."

His eyes trace the slight trembling of her lip, the fear of the unknown in her eyes and the way she looks so young, so utterly lost in the face of the glittering abyss he is exiling her to. He aches for the fire he fell in love with – and he is sure now that he loved that fire, if not yet her, from the very first day – and he aches for the usual determined set of her jaw and strong, cut glass sound of her voice.

"Come on, Bolly," he murmurs, tilting her chin up towards him. "I can't have you putting me off my stride. I'll end up wondering if I'm not completely right all the time and we can't have that…" he trails off at the hint of a smile, at the glimmer of her old fire. They share a sigh and each feels the other giving in to the order of the universe, to the words that fate has engraved into their stones, solid and immutable.

"Weren't bad though, were we?" he whispers, and there is an edge in his voice that cuts her in two.

She shakes her head. "No. No, we weren't."

She knows. He knows. They were bold and brash and foolish and ridiculous and they fought with cruel tongues and clawing fingers and made love with open eyes and reverent whispers, and they were incredible.

"But you'll come too…eventually? You'll come and join me, one day?"

He nods. "One day, Bolly. When you need me, I'll be there."

She kisses him one last time, lips touching his in a caress that feels more like a goodnight than a goodbye. As she pulls away, she can feel now the light behind her calling, tugging on something at the base of her spine, in the wells of her lungs, telling her that it is time. For one ephemeral moment she becomes aware of the movement of the earth beneath her feet, the orbit of every moon and sun about the stars and the journey of each dust particle about their feet. She reaches for his hand just once more, fingers slipping through his like water.

He whispers to her, "_Go_," and as she turns from him, he wishes, just for one fleeting moment, that she would do as she always has done and defy his orders, just to see the anger flare in his eyes, just to be able to kiss it away.

But she goes, as she must, and he watches with a heavy heart, lungs filled like wells of darkness inside his chest, as she slips through the door of the Railway Arms, disappearing to where he cannot yet follow.

* * *

Something about pink wine reminds Alex of Spring. It bubbles delicately on her tongue and slips down her throat all too easily as she sits in the corner of an effigy of Luigi's that heaven dreamt up when she arrived here, countless days ago. The passage of time is different here, and she misses the reliable coming and passing of each season, the cold oppression of winter and the liquid warmth of summer.

Her friends, one by one, have moved on. In the beginning, they were all here – Shaz, Chris, Ray… She even saw her mother once. They hadn't spoken, only met each other's gaze across the room, smiled and understood. But now the restaurant is empty, chairs filled with the ghosts of memories and tables bearing only rings of the glasses that once graced their surfaces. She has been alone for some time.

But now, Luigi's is not just empty, but lonely. She feels it in her heart – an ache, a longing that has until now been dulled by hope, by the conviction that he will come, one day. He promised.

The door is constantly in her sights, the white light behind its glass pane never changing, never altering. She longs for his shadow to darken it, for her eyes to finally drink in each familiar line of his silhouette. She plays it over and over in her mind and now she is waiting. Her skin has grown cold, fingers numb with the neglect of that which she so ardently adored. It tortures her, this loneliness, so that she cannot understand this heaven. She knows she must whisper his name over and over in her sleep, wherever she sleeps, and she longs for that world and wonders what is beyond this facsimile of Luigi's in which she holds herself prisoner.

And then one day, he is there.

It does not happen as she expects. There is no darkening of his shadow in the doorway, no sound to announce his presence. One day, she looks up from her empty glass, and he is there.

He hasn't changed. There is not one extra line on his face, not a hair out of place or item of clothing changed. He looks the same as he did on that cold London street when she kissed him goodnight and left him there alone in the dark.

Very slowly, she stands, still clutching the table as though afraid of falling. In all her imaginings of this moment, she says a million words, tells him a thousand things and whispers a hundred secrets. But now, now that he is here before her, all that escapes her lips is his name.

"Gene."

He smiles a little wryly. "Well you could at least look happy t' see me, Bolly."

And with that, the silence, her reverie, is broken. Her face splits into the widest smile he has ever seen, the morning sun in her eyes as she moves around the table and towards him, hands going to cradle his face, gravitating towards him, fingertips yearning for the feel of his rough skin beneath hers, to convince herself that he is here – he is here and he is staying and she doesn't have to be alone anymore. He gathers her to him, drowning her in his embrace as he runs fingers through her hair, across her lips, over her eyelids, reacquainting himself with every tiny part of her.

"I am," she finally whispers against his lips. "I am so happy to see you, Gene."

He smiles then – one of the small, rare smiles she has only seen a few times and that she wishes she could treasure somewhere, between the pages of a book or in the glass jar store of her memories. Kissing her, he luxuriates in everything he has been missing, in the subtle taste of her – all pink wine in springtime – and the warmth of human contact from which he has withdrawn. When they separate, he nods towards the bar.

"So what will it be, Bols - red or white?"

She smiles, taking his hand. This time, her fingers are solid and constant in his and he holds onto her instinctively.

"Neither, Gene." Looking behind them, she bites her lip and then says, "There are stairs, just like the ones to my old flat, with a door at the top. I've never been up them, I always figured… I just always knew that they were for when you arrived, and now you're here. Everyone else is gone, moved on… I couldn't go yet."

He understands. They climb the stairs together and find the home they have both been seeking beyond the door at the top. Alex lies entangled in white sheets and his arms hours, perhaps days, later, the whole world constructing itself out of their fantasies, some kind of divinity connecting the dots of their dreams and wishes so that their life now is built on constellations of their own making. Everything glitters. Alex knows that nothing lasts forever, but this – the sound of his heartbeat beneath her hand, just like on that very first day, and the comfort of his presence so close to her, the brilliancy of the life they lead now and their unspeakable _I love yous_ – perhaps this does.

* * *

_**It took me quite a while to write this and I pondered a lot of it for a long time. I've tried to communicate something of the ephemeral, unknown sort of dreamlike nature of what could be their afterlife in the last scene, but I've no idea if it comes off well or not. Please let me know your thoughts! Thank you so much for reading, and I apologise for the delay in the arrival of this final chapter. **_

_**Eleantris**_

_**~ all usual disclaimers apply. **_


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